Jon Udell at Infoworld responded to some of my and fellow bloggers’ recent remarks on how PR people might try to take advantage of blogging to benefit their clients.

In general, I think Udell is too magnanimous toward PR people, almost naive. While acknowledging that they (“we,” I’m aftraid) may be hired to ghost-write “an executive’s or architect’s blog” to make them and/or their firms look good, he says this won’t go too far, as the connection between bloggers and their readers are founded on a deep authenticity that is “hard to fake.” I don’t know about that last part. I have seen some PR people who can fake just about anything (it’ll all be in my book).

Once we have people who command a large audience (“transmitters”), we have PR people fluttering like moths around a light bulb. I would be very surprised if the mega-bloggers do not begin to get “pitched” blog ideas from PR hawkers (posing as dedicated fans who “want to share an idea” with them). We have already seen how Dr Pepper plans to create a “blogging network” to help hype its new product. Blogs are a rich and untapped market, and there is no way PR people will be able to ignore them.

As Udell goes on to say, there really is a helpful, justified side to PR in terms of brokering and facilitating smooth connections, to the benefit of journalist and spokesperson alike.

My gripe with my own industry is how this legitimate role can be abused. For example, a PR guy in one of the multi-national mega-PR firms (not my company here in China) recently put out a company-wide email asking everyone in the firm to go to a website where a poll was being held on which Widget has the best features; there, we were told to “vote” for the client firm’s Widget. This raises a slew of ethical questions that this emailer apparently never considered: it’s ballot stuffing; it destroys any possibility of a credible poll; it’s not the PR person’s role to tamper like this; it’s utterly stupid — the email is red-hot evidence of dirty tricks, etc., etc. But this is how a PR person responds: Opportunity; exploit it at any cost. It’s Pavlovian. The Opportunity bell rings, the PR person salivates.

The PR person who acts as a true coach and mentor is the exception, though that’s not necessarily our fault. The bottom line is that clients’ measure our success generally by a single criterion, i.e., column inches or other “measurable results.” (Many of them have no interest in our service as coaches/mentors.) Is it any wonder that we’ll go to nearly any extreme to obtain them? And that driving force will, I am afraid, end up contaminating the blogosphere, at least to some extent. It’s just too irresistible. Someone has a captive audience of a quarter-million readers a week, then someone somewhere is brainstorming on how to subtly use that blogger to get their client’s message across, be it on political affairs/legislation, a product, a company, whatever. Very low-hanging fruit in the eye of the PR shark.

I have been working on a report on AIDS in China. As I read the latest UN materials, I have to admit that even I was startled at just how awful the situation has become and how atrociously the government has dealt with it.. Equally startling are the reasons AIDS has had such an easy time spreading, basically unchallenged, throughout the country. It all goes back to the government and its obsession with “looking good.” The parallels with the current SARS crisis are abundant and rich.

Below are some of the paragraphs I’ve written over the past few days (an ideal cure for insomnia). This was a true “learning experience,” one that gave me a new and deeper understanding of this mysterious land that I am getting ready to leave….
AIDS in China

As this document is being prepared, China finds itself embroiled in controversy over the way that it has handled the outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). The New York Times has written, “China’s Ministry of Health still says that there is no evidence that the disease can be acquired in Beijing. What is clear, though, is that Chinese doctors knew a lot about SARS long before it had a name or had left China’s borders, and chose not to share that information for many months.”

Unfortunately, this scenario more or less mirrors the way China has handled its AIDS crisis, the process being denial, resistance, grudging acceptance of the need to cooperate, followed by the nightmare of a full-blown health crisis that could have been lessened had the government taken action earlier.

All indicators show that China is on the brink of an unprecedented explosion of the AIDS epidemic. The latest data, prepared by UNAIDS, the Joint United Nation Program on HIV/AIDS, indicate there were well over 1 million cases of AIDS at the end of 2001 and that this number will most likely mushroom to 10 million by 2010. About 70 percent of those infected are peasants living in rural areas.

Only in the mid-1990s did China start to acknowledge the worsening crisis, and the central government has been slow to take action. Currently only a few Chinese hospitals, all in the big coastal cities and far from the vast majority of infected citizens, are equipped to treat AIDS, and the cost of treatment is far too high for average citizens to afford. These factors, combined with the unwillingness of the government at the local level to take actions such as prevention awareness, converge to increase the likelihood of a future AIDS tragedy in China.

The main cause of AIDS in China has not been sexual transmission but contaminated needles, mainly those shared by injection drug users, but also needles used in unsanitary ways during paid plasma collection. In poorer parts of China, selling blood is a common way to earn extra money, especially for drug users and commercial sex workers. Tragically, many of the blood-collecting companies are unlicensed and illegal, and their use of contaminated needles has been a major factor in spreading the disease. Furthermore, those who sell blood to these companies are often in the most high-risk groups and have already been infected with HIV. Their blood is not tested, and is mixed into the blood pool and sold. Most of this occurs in poor, remote areas of China where there is less likely to be interference from authorities.

The epidemic is worse in provinces with a higher level of commercial sex and intravenous drug abuse. It is not surprising that the most severely affected area is along China’s southwest territory, bordering “The Golden Triangle” along the Myanmar, Laos and Thai borders, a region famous for its heavy trade in heroin, methamphetamines and other illegal drugs. In the northwest province of Xinjiang there has also been a huge outbreak due to prostitution, sharing of needles for drug injection, and little to no awareness of AIDS and its prevention.

AIDS in China has been a taboo topic for years, and to a large extent it remains so today. This is key to understanding the evolution of the AIDS epidemic in China, and why confronting it is so challenging.

The Chinese culture and government tend to frown on sex education and to discourage open dialogue on controversial subjects like AIDS, which has made it difficult to raise awareness, especially in the rural parts of the country. Most Chinese citizens, especially in rural areas, are frightened to discuss sex-related topics, and have a hard time gathering the courage even to purchase condoms. Their local governing officials usually harbor the same fears.

As the current SARS crisis demonstrates, both the central and provincial governments are highly reluctant to discuss anything that might reflect poorly on the image of China, as this might have an adverse effect on tourism and/or foreign investment. Officially there is still no prostitution, no drug abuse, and no blood donation scandal in China.

While in recent years the central government has become more involved in raising awareness of AIDS and taking steps to prevent and contain it, the local and provincial governments have been slow to follow suit. Often they make the situation more difficult by refusing to acknowledge the AIDS crisis as it might reflect poorly on them. It is at the local/provincial level that most of China’s 1.2 billion citizens deal with their government, and where they turn for help.

Because of the government’s avoidance of the issue, the general public has little knowledge of AIDS and how it is affecting China. This in turn creates fear of AIDS patients, who are often fired from their jobs or banned from attending school. This contributes to a vicious circle, where the AIDS victims chooses not to seek help for fear of losing their job or facing public disgrace.

Even today AIDS has “no face” in China; it was only in 2001, at the Beijing International AIDS congress, that the first infected man was allowed to speak to a public audience. This was after the central government had implemented its “Five-year Plan of Action to Contain and Control of HIV/AIDS” with a set of specific goals for grappling with AIDS. Since that time, in 2002, there was actually a public wedding of an AIDS-infected couple, indicating a further shift toward coming to terms with the disease.

Still, the five-year plan continues to present AIDS strictly as a medical problem without considering the broader social-economic implications of the crisis. Thus, public awareness remains low. Some of the legislation has actually made the situation worse, especially at provincial and local levels. Many local governments simply do not want to know or let others know about AIDS in their respective regions, as it might make them look bad. So information is suppressed. In addition, local officials worry that an honest assessment of prostitution, illegal plasma collection and drug abuse in their region would lead to their being accused of incompetency.

Laws based on prejudice and fear exacerbate rather than curb the epidemic. Employers in Beijing, for example, are required to report “suspected AIDS patients” to local health authorities, reinforcing the notion that AIDS victims will be punished. In Hebei, all citizens with STDs are banned from entering school, getting married or working in service-related fields. Local and provincial laws are frequently in direct contradiction to national AIDS guidelines prepared by the central government’s Ministry of Health.

International experience shows that restrictive laws and punitive measures have little effect in curbing AIDS, while there is no question that they can have a negative impact on both prevention and care. In a punitive environment, vulnerable people will be more inclined to avoid preventive outreach, and people will decline getting tested for HIV for fear of punishment and/or stigmatization.

At the heart of the entire problem is awareness. When AIDS first surfaced in the US, the mantra for years was “Siilence equals death.” Sadly, that formula has proven to be totally correct when it comes to China. Keeping silent and ignoring the reality of AIDS has made the situation in China infinitely worse than it could/should have been.

Simply acknowledging the existence of these issues, let alone taking bold action on them, is challenging in a cultural environment that is inclined to minimize or ignore its problems, especially those related to traditionally “untouchable” topics like drugs, prostitution and homosexuality. Let us hope that the small steps China is only just beginning to take continue to accelerate, gathering increased momentum and determination. There is no time to waste.

Don’t miss this excellent article by The Washington Post’s China correspondent John Pomfret on how SARS patients who don’t have enough cash are being tossed onto the street by China’s capitalist hospitals. Snippet:

Several days after Chen Jianchang checked into Guangzhou’s No. 8 Hospital with what appeared to be severe acute respiratory syndrome, officials ordered one of his roommates to check out. The man, who was also exhibiting symptoms of SARS, owed the hospital $250, said Chen’s daughter, Chen Lili, who was visiting her father at the time. “They made him pack up and go,” she said. “Who knows what happened to him? He had no money and he was sick.”

The SARS epidemic has hit China at a time of turmoil in its health care system. Once the pride of this nation, the country’s socialist health care system, with its “barefoot doctors” and free clinics, has collapsed. In its place has emerged a dog-eat-dog medical system that benefits the rich and generally hurts the poor, Chinese economists and public health researchers say.

The picture Pomfret paints is bleak, and you have to ask, If they are doing this to SARS patients, are they treating AIDS patients any differently?

He goes on to describe just how nasty things here can get:

The Chen family found that out. When Chen Jianchang, 78, died on Feb. 22, his body lay at the hospital for two days because the family owed the hospital $750 in medical fees, including charges for immune-system boosters and antiviral and steroid medications, which are widely used in China to treat SARS. “The hospital wouldn’t release him to us for cremation until we came up with money,” said his daughter, Chen Lili. “They just kept his corpse in a room, waiting for the cash.”

Pomfret also points out how the abuse of antibiotics in China (you can buy them at any 7/11-type shop) is messing up people’s immune systems here….
[Courtesy of SARSWATCH and a fellow blogger via email)

My “broadband” service was down all weekend, so no blogging. I will make up for it later today.

Trouble in paradise? Apparently there are 9 new cases of SARS in Shanghai and other assorted bad news according to Sarswatch.

Another excellent article in the NY Times on SARS, which is apparenly under control in most places. The disconcerting sentence is this:

The main caveat in the health organization’s guarded optimism is China, Dr. Heymann said, because SARS cases continue to occur in Guangdong and “we don’t know what’s going on outside of Guangdong Province, and that is our concern.”

Some more somber observations on why there’s really no way to know the state of SARS in China can be read here.

A scary article on how pro-lifers and creationists are threatening research and science in the US. Especially jarring are the Bush administration’s slick and sneaky efforts to slip creationism in under the door while intentionally perpetuating negative myths about abortion:

Some other signs: if you were contemplating an abortion and were worried about the rumour that it might increase your risk of breast cancer, you might visit the website of the government-funded National Cancer Institute to read their factsheet, which noted that most scientists doubt a link. Or, at least, you might have done so until June last year, when the page, criticised by some Republicans in Congress, simply vanished. (A replacement page was posted last month.) Or maybe you were an Aids activist, elated by the president’s unexpected (and genuinely revolutionary) announcement in the State of the Union address of $15bn (?.7bn) in funding for fighting the epidemic worldwide – and then surprised to find that only around 10% was destined for the Global Aids Fund, while the rest would be funnelled through US agencies, where it is more likely to be accessible to American abstinence-only groups campaigning against condoms.

Ominous post from InfoWorld’s Jon Udell (courtesy Scripting News) about the further (ab)use of tools like RSS feeds by those bloodsucking, unctuous, hypocritical, shameless, duplicitous, conscienceless, paid-to-lie slimeballs whom we blandly refer to as “PR professionals.”

Of course, being a PR professional myself, I can safely say that most of them really are all of the above. The good ones, like me, are kind, compassionate, sensitive, creative, well-read, articulate, open-minded, forward-thinking, slightly quirky and generally delightful people. The problem is, at last sighting there were about 19 of the good ones left walking the planet and millions of the others.

One day, when I am not working in the industry, I will write my expose.

Anyway, as I posted earlier (can’t get the link thanks to the Great Firewall), it was only a matter of time before the industry sharks descended on innocent bloggers, coming up with ways to “nudge” them into mentioning their clients’ products and services. “Hey, Andrew, as you write about the great victory in Iraq, you might want to let your readers know that those missles were built by Raytheon….” Expect to see more and more of this, ye who run the Big Blogs.

Beijing has just announced a 24-hour “SARS hotline.” I can’t post the Chinese text (gets all garbled) but can forward the notice, in Chinese, to anyone who requests it by email.

I am getting tired of posting about SARS, but as I wrote yesterday, Beijing really is SARS City. Four of my colleagues donned surgical masks today. Just now, an email started flying through my office that the Mayor of Beijing has authorized a special 2,500-man “SARS Brigade” to walk through the city streets, with the authority to detain anyone whom they believe has been afflicted and force them to pack off to isolated prevention wards.

Repeat, this is probably a hoax, but that’s what I thought about the Time story earlier this week. Meanwhile, here’s the latest from the Official SARS Photo Album, this one titled SARS Wedding.

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